For almost 22 years, they waited and wondered what had happened to their 23-year-old daughter and sister missing from her North Jacksonville home after her purse and her car were found near the airport.

But when DNA tests identified skeletal remains found in the backyard of Bonnie Lynn Haim’s former home on Dolphin Avenue as her, investigators had their first piece of new evidence in a very cold case.

That led to Monday’s arrest of husband Michael Ray Haim in Waynesboro, N.C., on a murder charge, tying up another loose end of an investigation that started with weeks of searching for her body in January 1993.

http://liarcatchers.com/wrongful_death.html

Bonnie Haim’s father, Robert Pasciuto, said the family didn’t have “anything to say at the moment” when reached about the developments. Bonnie and Michael Haim’s son, now Aaron Fraser, wouldn’t comment yet either, according to his family.

On a Facebook page set up by sister Liz Mahoney Peak to seek leads on Bonnie’s disappearance, words of thanks were printed an hour after police announced the arrest.

“Thank you for your patience, love and support as we close one chapter of Bonnie Pasciuto Haim’s story and open another,” it said.

Sheriff’s Office Director Mike Bruno announced the arrest at a Tuesday news conference, standing with State Attorney Angela Corey and Robbie Hinson, the original homicide detective in the case. Bruno said Michael Haim, 49, will be extradited back to Jacksonville to go to trial.

“He’s been residing in North Carolina with family,” Bruno said. “… There are still some elements to put together, but ultimately we had the probable cause and based on the information through 20-plus years and detective Hinson’s work, we were able to build this case.”

Hinson worked the case initially as a Sheriff’s Office homicide detective and now as a State Attorney’s Office investigator.

“We used every resource we could to bring it to conclusion,” he said. “… I am really thankful and grateful that the good Lord let me see this to its completion.”

Bonnie Haim was a computer analyst who had been married to her husband about five years. Their son, Aaron, was 3 at the time of her disappearance.

Michael Haim told police that he and his wife had an argument the night of Jan. 6 and that she had left their Dolphin Avenue home just north of the Trout River the next day. Hours later, a clerk at a motel near Jacksonville International Airport found her purse in a trash bin, then her Toyota Camry was found abandoned at the airport.

At the time, Haim said he and his wife had some disagreements but nothing involving violence. He said she had been sad lately.

“I would love her to come back home and work everything out,” Haim told the Times-Union. “Everyone has a few problems, but she never did this before.”

The family gathered a year later to host a memorial for Bonnie off Airport Road, hoping the publicity would turn up leads. Michael Haim did not attend.

On the Facebook page with dozens of family photos, many show a smiling Haim with her son. A Nov. 18, 2012, entry says the disappearance remains “an open book,” fill it.

“Bonnie’s soft quiet voice continues to call me to that book. Though she has been gone for almost 20 years, the last chapters have not yet been written,” the entry said in part.

Later that same day, a post reacts to the discovery of human remains in Northwest Jacksonville, saying that every time a body or bones are found, “far too many families across our region are hopeful and scared that it could be the body of their missing loved one.”

On Jan. 6, 2013, another entry acts as Bonnie’s voice, reminding readers that she was declared a missing person 20 years ago that day.

“My friends and family and hundreds of people that I had never met searched for me but have not yet found me,” it reads. “… With every new subdivision and building that is built, I have hopes that someone will find my grave. As each year passes, I have hopes that someone will want to clear their conscience and tell the story of my last hours. Perhaps this is the year that the story of my life will be completed and my body will finally be laid to rest with a proper burial.”

That post predicted what happened.

On Dec. 15 workers digging out a backyard pool at the home on Dolphin Avenue found what appeared to be a piece of skull, police said. No one had lived there for some time. While neighbors speculated it could be Haim, her father said he didn’t think so but that “anything is possible.”

Eight months later Bruno said the DNA tests came back confirming the identity, and the investigation into her death was revived. Corey credited Hinson’s doggedness for this week’s result.

“This case involves just hundreds of individual circumstances spanning the last 20-something years that we will put together and put in front of a jury to seek justice for Bonnie Haim and her son,” said Corey, who also worked on this case in 1993 as an assistant state attorney. “… I can’t tell you what a long time it’s been in this case. And I can’t tell you the number of times after we ran out of leads, so to speak back then, that Robbie would come put a reminder in my office not to ever forget this case, and neither one of us have ever forgotten it.”

The couple’s son, Aaron, didn’t forget either. He filed and won a $26.3 million wrongful death lawsuit against his father in April 2005, the Sheriff’s Office said.

Corey said she hopes to have this case in front of a jury within a year, after it goes to a grand jury.

Marley McKenna Spindler sent a text message to friends saying she was being followed shortly before the 16-year-old disappeared five days ago from South Carolina’s Myrtle Beach, her father told FoxNews.com Tuesday.

“We don’t know if it’s true, but she did send that text,” Jayson Spindler said of the cryptic message, which his daughter sent to a group of friends shortly after dining with them at a restaurant in the early morning of Aug. 20.

Spindler left her Surfside Beach, S.C., home Thursday morning to meet friends for breakfast at a Chick-Fil-A restaurant on Highway 544 before heading to Socastee High School to begin the first day of her junior year. She never made it.

Spindler was last heard from at 8:42 a.m. when she sent a group text message to friends saying someone was following her.

When Spindler’s father called her cellphone at around 4 p.m. Thursday, a clerk with the Ocean Reef Resort answered and said the phone had been found earlier in the day in the hotel’s parking lot.

Denis said there is no evidence to indicate foul play at this time, adding that a search of the teen’s cellphone, “revealed evidence that she left alone and not under duress or coercion.”

Spindler’s father, however, said it is highly unusual for his daughter to to be away from home for an extended period of time.

“It’s very uncharacteristic of her to be gone,” he told FoxNews.com. “We love her and we’re proud of her and we need her to come home safe.”

On Tuesday, police released surveillance images taken the morning Spindler disappeared that show the teen at her bank, where she withdrew a small amount of money from her account.

Authorities said the teenager’s 2002 silver Ford Escape — with South Carolina license plate No. KFI776 — also is missing.

The Horry County Police Department said Spindler is considered “Missing Endangered” because of her age and the circumstances surrounding her disappearance.

“Detectives have been working around the clock to find her,” Denis said.

Spindler disappeared not far from where 17-year-old Brittanee Drexel was last seen more than six years ago. Drexel, from Rochester, N.Y., disappeared from the area after leaving the Blue Water Resort on April 25, 2009. She has never been found.

Spindler is described as 5 feet, 8 inches tall, weighing 100 pounds with light brown hair and hazel eyes, according to a Facebook page created to help find her.

Anyone with information on Spindler’s whereabouts is urged to contact the Horry County Police Department at 843-915-8477 (843-915-TIPS).

A high school biology teacher at Madison Southern High School has been arrested and charged with sexual contact.

Officers were called to the school along with social services to investigate possible allegations of sexual contact between a teacher and a student.

Investigators says 24-year-old Brandi Whitaker of Richmond KY had sexual contact with a 16 year old male student.  According to Richmond Police,  Whitaker had sexual contact with the student on two different occasions and neither incident took place on school property.

http://liarcatchers.com/contact.php

Whitaker was arrested and charged with sexual abuse, rape and sodomy.

Madison County School Superintendent, Erin Stewart, says they are cooperating with the police investigation and are conducting their own internal investigation.

Pending the results of both, the teacher has been suspended with pay effective immediately.

City police believe that a missing 14-year-old girl could be in Millville, according to an announcement from the department.

The missing girl, Jessica Thompson, is 5-foot-6-inches tall and approximately 120 pounds.

She is possibly wearing a green, orange and yellow colored shirt. Her hair is shoulder length and in braids.

http://liarcatchers.com/missing_persons_investigations.html

Bridgeton Police Department announced her missing Sunday night on its Facebook page.

Anyone with information about her disappearance is asked to contact the department by calling 856-451-0033.